Ted’s Aliyah, Day 1

I just went to ask Ted / Akiva’s permission to repost the updates he’s been sharing on facebook and after a week of jetlag, he’s passed out asleep, yay!  Which gives me total permission to share.  Here’s his first update, from the first day – uncut, unedited, and utterly, utterly raw (seriously, I love Ted’s writing because it is so uninhibited, completely unlike mine).

But first – a disclaimer.  This is not MY writing, it is just copied and pasted from my very talented husband, Teddy (now Akiva) MacLeod.  If you like his writing, you’ll love his graphic design portfolio… when he gets around to creating one.  :-/

Okay, time for the 24 hours in Israel Recap:
Left home at 2:45PM and arrived in Kiryat Yam (near Haifa up north) at 11:45 AM T.O. time (about 7PM here). That’s like 21 hours of airplanes, buses, shuttle taxis and minivan taxis with an impatient and tired five year old who at one point, lay on the floor of the airport, screaming “I WANT TO GO HOME NOW!!” Poor, poor kid.
Highlights are I finally saw Iron Man 3 on the plane, a family made a lasagna dinner for us and brought it to our door and at the end of the day we went for a walk along the miles of beach here outside of Haifa.
Spent the night sweating like crazy. So humid and I am not used to it. I'm not usually a sweater (er, yeah) but here? Man, I hope my body adjusts to this, but then again, it is the middle of August and it's supposed to get cooler come September.
This morning, a hot Russian chick who works here at the Mirkat Klita (spelling...whatever... the place we are staying temporarily for the next five months) took us for a tour of the local market place, where GZ got overheated and started screaming again. Later Jfer and Naomi went off to a bigger mall while I took GZ to the beach to look for shells. He had a great time running around, this was more his element. I promised we'd go swimming later when we got our swim suits on.
On the way back from a fruit stand, loaded down with bags of fruit, I was stopped by a black guard who said in English "Wait a minute, YOU live here????" I forgot to mention that this place is home to like 95% black Ethiopian Jews and 5% white dudes, mostly Russian, so I guess I stick out around here, but the black people here are amazingly nice. They will do anything to help you.
Anyway, the guard held out his hand and said "Welcome then, my name is Negga" and I just smiled back and mumbled my name to him. (Yes, I know I am immature and racist)
Later, I took both kids swimming in the Mediterranean Sea as the sun was beginning to set and I didn't realize it, but this was their first time swimming in an ocean with big waves and salty water. They loved it and were squealing with delight every time they were knocked over by a wave. I had to drag GZ off the beach after the sun set and it was starting to get really dark, but it was weird because we all had the awake energy of someone at one PM, which it was in Toronto.
I threw them in bed and I think they went to sleep. I don't know, I ran down to the lobby here to use the free wifi and update you with what is going on.
Okay, see you tomorrow.